Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Warning: long review! Be sure to read edits at the end. We're planning a trip to Hawaii in the near future. We love to look for deserted, wind-swept beaches. Trouble is, there's rarely any shade. I read about the Neso, which is lightweight and folds up small enough to fit in a rollaboard suitcase. Sounded perfect for us. I packed a lunch and planned to spend the day to see how it would work in variable winds. I used all of the tips on the Neso website for setup procedure for windy days, and they worked like a collective charm. Those included stretching the bags very taut before planting the poles, filling the sand bags very full, burying them, planting the poles heading into the wind and slightly burying the end of both poles into the sand. It stayed up the entire 6 hours without any adjustments. Those who have had trouble with being unable to keep a Neso up, I have one other suggestion for you. Although you may think you can tell the direction the wind is traveling, judging by feel can be deceptive. There is a free app called "My Radar." Grab it! It tells at a glance the direction of the wind at any given time for your locale. It shows, with little moving purple dashes where the wind is originating and the path it's traveling at the moment. You can check it again, at any time during the day to observe if it has changed (if your tent pole falls, that would indicate a shift in wind direction) and plant the two poles accordingly to compensate. Checking the app takes 2 seconds. Changing the position takes about 3-5 seconds. You don't have to reposition the tent, just the poles. Fortunately, I didn't have to do that, because the wind was a steady ESE all day. So my application in the morning worked all day. Oh, and the app sends you great, timely alerts while you're at the beach to warn you of any approaching pop-up storms while you're enjoying your beach time so you have time to pack up and bug out, if necessary. It is true that the Neso needs more space then an umbrella to set up, but I'm a beach early bird, so I don't have to fight for space. I tend to view the larger overall setup as a big plus, because it precludes someone staking out their square of beachfront property right on top of me. The biggest challenge for me, believe it or not, was how to get everything back in the bag. I actually emailed Matt, the company owner, to ask him how to do it. He suggested I stuff it evenly in the bag, making sure not to get a wad in the bottom, then use my hand to guide each pole by the fabric. It worked, but I had an idea of making a couple of fabric pouches to hold the poles (see picture below) and it did the trick, allowing them glide right into the case, without having to use my hand to guide them past the tent. Score! 5/6/2016, edited to add: I bought two extra poles from Neso, and I would recommend them for those who want more shaded space with head room. With only two poles, as some have noted, the back of the tent droops too low to accommodate a chair when there's low wind. The tent depends on having at least a light wind to lift the back. But if the wind is dead on a given day, most likely in the morning, you'll find that two additional poles take care of that problem. This makes the shade field more spacious, making this easily fit as many as 4 chairs. I posted a picture below with the additional two poles. 5/12/2016: Three star reduction, from 5 to 2. Everything said above still applies, meaning it's an effective sun shade, but I have serious concerns for the longevity of this product, and customer service was no help with a legitimate problem. On only the fifth time I used it, the edge stitching broke and began to unravel at two of the corners, just above the reinforcement panels. At that point, I wrote to tell Matt Goldberg about it, (a third corner ripped out the 6th time of use) sent pictures as he requested of one of the rip-outs. Since from previous email exchanges, he knows that I sew, that influenced his reply. His response was that I should just re-sew the edge with a zig zag stitch and trim the loose threads. He said that the edge stitching doesn't perform any task, other than to give a more finished appearance. Both of those things I already knew. I repaired it that afternoon, but because it's not the same stitch as the original, it looks like an ugly scar. He said that each new order of the tents has improvements over the last, which he said is not unlike the iPhone. Well, that wasn't an appropriate answer. First off, your response was tantamount to admitting that those of us who bought earlier bought an inferior product. When you say that you're "constantly improving" with each manufacturing run, that doesn't help the customer stuck with your current version. Your answer helps me how, exactly?? It becomes readily apparent that you didn't do your homework before you put your product on the market. And well, let's face it; an iPhone it ain't. No complex electronics here, no glass touch screens, no sophisticated, delicate chips and processors, no retina displays. Let's get real. This is a square of fabric with stretchy cords and fabric bags. That's it. Not exactly high tech that needs to have bugs worked out. Full testing under all sorts of conditions should have been completed and quality control should have been optimized before ever putting the product on the market, rather than expecting your customers to be guinea pigs for your later iterations. Telling customers to do their own repairs on a brand new $90 product (seriously??) rather than replacing it is just absurd. That's passing the buck. The stitching was defective, unable to handle the load that results with a proper set up, and the situation should have been made right by replacement, no questions asked. Period. If you can't make a product that won't rip out in the course of normal use, then a refund should be offered. So be advised - unless you're good with a sewing machine (something most homes now don't even have) Just go into the purchase knowing that you could end up stuck with a product that might unravel and look like hell very soon after purchase. Caveat emptor. My advice to obtain a well constructed sunshade is simply this: Buy an OTENTIK. The design is virtually the same (Otentik was the first, having been on the market since 2010, years before the astoundingly similar Neso was "invented") with 4 ropes and sandbags at the corners of the main tent. To get a dependable product that will stand up to my near-daily use, I invested a little more and got an Otentik. It was decidedly well worth the difference. Close stitching on the edges that can withstand the repeated, aggressive stretching, cover stitching on the sand bags for reinforcement, comes with sleeves for packing up the poles. Beefier, high quality fabric, that snaps back to its original, flat form when you remove the corner poles (made in Italy, called Eurojersey Sensitive fabric.) lightweight, very stretchy carry bag that is far easier to pack up (the Neso carry bag has no give.) I've used the Otentik about 30 times, in some punishing conditions, like near gale-force winds, sudden cloudbursts, with no traces of resultant wear. Perhaps best of all, Otentik comes with phenomenal customer service that is responsive, helpful, and genuinely interested in going the extra mile to make sure their customers are happy with their purchase. Only wish I had found them first.